


Let Me...

by RaphaelArchie



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Boys In Love, First Kiss, First Time, Hand Jobs, Insecurity, Love, M/M, Mind Meld, Spock and Jim should actually be at work, True Love, Vulcan Biology, mind-blowing orgasms, reassurance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-28 14:18:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14451072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaphaelArchie/pseuds/RaphaelArchie
Summary: "He wanted to laugh. He wanted to weep. His body was threatening to do both. He couldn’t swallow. He couldn’t catch his breath. Funny, given the echo of a certain similar position of a few years ago. Again, certain he was going to actually kill him. And in this utterly fucking wonderful and unbelievable state, he would have gone gladly".A standard sort of argument has brought Spock and Jim to the edge of something both of them have always wanted. Spock closes the last bit of space between them, and in Spock's hands Jim comes entirely undone.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this some time ago (along with a fair amount of other fics), but it had never really occurred to me to post it. I am so deeply fascinated by the relationship between these two - so intensely intimate, and so formal at the same time. Naturally, then, I love the idea of all formality going out the window, and what's underneath being completely exposed....Plus, this was fun to write. And extremely easy - they write themselves, I think, in this sort of situation ;)
> 
> It ends rather abruptly, but there is a second part, in which Jim is suffering some highly inconvenient flashbacks....but I will wait to see what the response is like before inflicting any more on the data waves! 
> 
> Any feedback or comments greatly appreciated. Otherwise, hope a few of you enjoy it :) xxx

They were standing close now, as they often did when they argued. But this was different. Spock knew it was different. And he knew Jim knew it was different. Spock could feel the heat from Jim’s skin, and it was not caused by anger, or fear, or frustration. His pupils were blown so wide that the iconic blue was a mere crystal strip. Jim was standing before him, somewhat defiant, but also so unbearably and invitingly open, as was Jim’s natural state, and Spock could not bear it any longer. And if he was correct, Jim could not bear it either. Rash, human, and quite possibly illogical as it was, Spock threw aside reserve. This was it. The moment was here, and he would sooner die than allow it to disappear. He stood still, arms at his sides, and did not move a fraction away from the space he and Jim were now sharing. He wanted Jim to see everything. He deployed a human phrase, so as to close any distance that might still be lingering between them. There was very little; they may not have truly bonded, but Spock could hear and feel Jim’s emotions seeping through the atmosphere and into his skin as clearly as he had once felt the Vulcan wind. They were standing at the brink. That distance was only really physical.

“Where do we go from here, Jim?” he asked, quietly.

He knew the answer.

“I don’t know!” Jim almost yelled. But his eyes never left Spock’s face.

He knew too.

“That is incorrect”.

Jim flushed, all the gold undertones in his skin seeming to swim to the surface and illuminating him in radiant brilliance. Spock could have died at the sight. He certainly lost a few seconds from his life. He willed himself to keep standing – to stand his ground in the face of this debilitating luminosity.

“And that’s not fair”, Jim said, more quietly than before, despite the fire in his eyes. “I can’t read your mind or emotions, how am I meant-“

Spock took the last one quarter-pace forwards, and seized Jim's hand. He felt the shock of the contact bolt through Jim, who looked up at him with a mixture of bewilderment, disbelief, and….hope?

Then, Spock let his shields down.

Jim was hit with the full force of it within seconds – five years’ worth of adoration, devotion, respect, desire, admiration, love. It swamped his mind and body with all the might of a deep, long-concealed Vulcan emotion that was no longer being concealed, and it was so powerful, and so beautiful, and the relief that followed from his own emotions so overwhelming that Jim almost actually reeled under the intensity. Which didn’t matter, because Spock could feel that relief through the now mutual flow of their emotions, and suddenly everything between them honed to nothing but love and ruthless want, and Spock caught Jim up, gathered him to him, and kissed him, hard.

First kisses were not, Jim thought vaguely to himself, somewhere in the recesses of his mind that was currently besieged by explosives, meant to be like this. They were not meant to be this good. Because it took time to learn someone…but then, he realised, he and Spock knew each other like they were two parts of the same whole. Because that was exactly what they were. They worked together in an unnervingly perfect fusion of cooperation, friction, energy, sweetness, and passion. The way they kissed was exactly the same. What was different was that, this time, they could allow the undercurrent of physical tension to the surface. Which it did in head-swimmingly monumental proportions. Desire punched Jim over and over, deep in his belly, and drove him to seek more, more, more….He sealed himself to Spock’s body, wrapped himself around him as far as he could go, felt Spock doing exactly the same, and pressed into the kiss as if it was the only air available, licking deeper into his mouth, hands scrabbling against science-blue tunic, unable to get hold of him enough.

Then something between them broke open completely, and this was no longer just a kiss…Everything began to accelerate under the power of a longing so intense that Jim physically ached right to his core. He groaned into Spock’s mouth, and his hands roamed under Spock’s tunic with obvious direction…But he found the broad body beneath them moving so as to interrupt their course. Then he was pushed carefully but weightily closer to the wall behind him, under that superior Vulcan strength.

“Let me - ”, Spock breathed against his ear and neck, running a hand over Jim’s hip, and although there was a desperate tone in his voice and he clearly couldn’t find the words, no other words were needed. “Just….let me…”

Jim understood then – Spock was going to be in charge here. And the thought, brought to his already painfully aroused state, nearly ended him then and there.

A second reflexive groan escaped him, and he bit his lip and squeezed his eyes tightly with the effort of regaining himself. Spock’s body was pressed so close to his own he could feel his heartbeat, and despite the biological difference in places, he could not tell them apart. Holding him against the wall, Spock kissed him deeply, with resolve – and with evident need. He became aware of another presence within himself, as close as his own blood, and realised that – of course – as their hands had tangled, and skin touched, they were connected. Spock’s hand was at his throat, fingers curling around the back of his neck into his hair, pressure against his windpipe, gentle, but firm, and purposeful (the muscles there remembered that hand, Jim realised, remembered the first time that skin was imprinted onto his own), and oh so warm, so fucking warm, and his head fell back in a stomach clenching wave of devastating desire. His shirt was lifted up at the side, and Spock’s other hand was under there, sliding up and over his stomach, rib cage, chest, and then back down to his hip, gripping with that same power and heat….He was, under these hands, absolutely helpless. Beyond helpless. He relinquished all control – no, that wasn’t right. He wasn’t relinquishing anything, that would imply he had the choice to give it. The truth was he couldn’t help it. He felt it draining it out of him, being drained out of him, by the second, with every deepening kiss, every place that mouth moved over his jaw, neck, shoulder, every movement that kept him solidly and protectively against the wall behind him, every touch of that impossible warmth. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to weep. His body was threatening to do both. He couldn’t swallow. He couldn’t catch his breath. Funny, given the echo of a certain similar position of a few years ago. Again, certain he was going to actually kill him. And in this utterly fucking wonderful and unbelievable state, he would have gone gladly.

They didn’t have much time before they were due back on the bridge, but now long fingers were trailing down below his navel, tracing the guiding line of hair there over taut bare skin, and stopping to dip just below his waistband – a question. He thought _yes, yes, God please, yes_ , - and he knew Spock heard him as clearly as if he had shouted the words aloud. Then his belt was deftly undone, and that hand slid straight into his boxers, wrapping firmly around the whole length of him…and fuck if his knees didn’t almost buckle completely. But Spock’s leg pushed in harder between his thighs, and bore what weight he couldn’t. His fingers reflexively gripped deep into the dense muscle beneath them, and he gasped against Spock’s mouth, and felt him damn well _smile_. Spock’s hands were made of that same heat, and his palm impossibly soft. For the barest of moments, there was a pause, the only movement and sound their joined heavy breaths. It was just long enough for his mind to absorb what was happening.

It was excruciating. It was unbearable. It was nothing short of magic.

Then Spock struck up a slow rhythm, and Jim could feel, in every fibre of his body and his mind, the sheer tenderness that was there, alongside the fierce need. It brought up and out of him another unintentional gasp. He was being undone with staggering rapidity. He wasn’t going to last this. But he somehow heard that that was alright…that he could give himself over…

Bodies flushed tight together, kiss even tighter, the heat from Spock’s body, the skin of that stroking hand, the other hand skimming over every part of him it could reach, holding him to him, his ears and heart being filled with a cacophony of whispered words – both spoken and unspoken, both English and Vulcan, their inner voices blending through the physical touch - of passion and aching desire and love, God the ache, the heat, that _hand_ , that fit so perfectly and was moving so dangerously, their hammering hearts unified, bodies moving in the same pattern, that hand, that hand, breath hitching as everything built so soon, far too soon – but then Spock’s hips rolled forwards against his, and with _that hand…..Spock’s hand…_.

He didn’t stand a chance.

His brain suddenly emptied of the frenzied white noise of all this awareness, and was replaced by deep, silent, stretching nothing – it was nothing but them, and this sensation, stretching out, and out, and up, and up…..and then -

Oh…

Fucking….

HELL.

The involuntary howl that ripped out of him in that moment trebled in volume as it echoed around the glass confines, and he was sure it would accidentally summons Bones from the medbay. Spock went to clap his free hand over his mouth, but was too late, and Jim was certain he saw laughter cross the surface of Spock’s face. That was before stars obscured his vision, and the climax drew a sob from him, and he buried his face in Spock’s shoulder, and held on as he was wracked with wave after wave, and he emptied body and soul, into Spock’s hand and his being.

Finally he collapsed back against the wall, sweating, and his breath coming half in rapid huffs, half in short, disbelieving laughs. Spock withdrew his hand carefully, aware of now hyper-sensitive skin. Then Spock’s arms were there to hold him, as he knew they would be, and he reached forwards to put a shaking hand to the back of his neck, and bring their foreheads together as he waited for even a trace of blood to return north to his brain.

After a minute or so, Spock drew back only slightly, his body screaming at him for moving even a fraction away from that intoxicating warmth and proximity - but it was only so he could watch the man in front of him. Jim had lit up. Spock ran his hands softly and reverently over him, and Jim's entire body, wherever he touched him, lit up, as if he was writing a star map. More so than Spock had thought possible, given the light that radiated from him so naturally at all other times. He was, not for the first time, possessed by an almost irrepressible need to devour him – all his smile and laughter and beauty, and bravery and strength and genius – and vulnerability. He could not fathom how to get close enough to him. There was, Spock decided, no reasonable way. There was only this – this …the familiar overwhelming need for intimacy, to be near him, to touch him, to sleep beside him, locked together in a private world. But somehow, illogically, being able to put his hands on him wherever he pleased, being able to draw him close, and create in him that kind of reaction – the need had only increased. Looking at him now, skin flushed, eyes an inexpressibly darker blue, slight smile, slight post-climax tremble, honey-gold and warm and bound up with everything good in Spock's life and so bright, so _here_ , vulnerable and human under his fingers, Spock felt every human atom within him pulsate violently with the force of it, and knew what he was about to say even before the words were on his tongue. He put a hand to Jim's cheek, ran his thumb along faint bruises that had caused him as much pain as they had Jim. He leaned in.

“Jim”, he whispered, against his ear. He was not captain at this moment, although he would always love him on that level as well. He was just ("just") the man with whom he was desperately and painfully in love.

“…..I love you”.


	2. Twelve Hours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Jim Kirk was nothing if not the master of maintaining solid gold appearances in the face of extremely difficult circumstances....."
> 
> .....and attempting to remain professional until the end of Alpha shift while being visited by graphic flashbacks involving certain things your First Officer's hands have done to you is the newest (and best) of those circumstances.
> 
> A.K.A, The One Where Jim Repeatedly Dies Inside

That had been twelve hours ago.

Twelve hours of the _longest fucking shift the universe ever invented._

For at intervals of approximately every 30 seconds, he was now being visited by wildly inconvenient and particularly vivid flashbacks, that seemed almost literally burnt into his brain with Vulcan heat and the imprint of the telepathic connection. It was incredible, exhilarating, stupefying, and excruciating.

And just plain excruciating.

Spock’s tongue licking a long, hot, stripe up his neck, Spock's fingers playing in the line of hair below his navel, a hot hot firm hand sliding down between his legs, Spock's knee shoving between his thighs and holding him as he built him up to climax with such ease, his body’s helplessness against Spock’s touch, coming with no control…

Spock’s deep whisper against his ear, those words….

He hadn’t had chance to return them. He had opened his mouth, found that his heart was actually attempting to burst out of his chest and throat, coughed, smiled, melted into the ground – and both of their comms had gone off. Spock had swiftly rescued the situation, taking a small step back just far enough to straighten his tunic (given what they had just done, and what Jim's brain was now begging for, even the sight of that had made Jim have to mentally lie back and think of England) and answered Scotty on both their behalves as Jim reorganised his own uniform. Then they had exchanged their own particular look, the one that had always conveyed eons of words without their exchanging a single one and the one that now held something else within it that defied all words entirely, and although Jim had gone again to speak, Spock had held up a hand.

“We will reconvene later, Jim”, he had said, softly.

“But - ”, Jim had said, concerned that Spock would think –

But Spock had heard him.

“It is alright, Jim”, he said, standing aside slightly to allow his captain to pass, but not enough so that Jim wouldn’t have to brush against him, make contact… “I know it is important for you to say it – and it is equally important for me to hear it. But I will wait…only because it is so entirely worth waiting for".

Now, sat on the bridge in daily routine, concentration was – to put it mildly – quite difficult. Jim hoped fervently that Bones didn’t come anywhere near him with a tricorder – he was pretty certain that it would reveal the fact he was in very real danger of having a heart attack.

Spock, for his part, was utilising every atom of his Vulcan advantage in impassiveness. And he was rapidly beginning to doubt his own efficacy in this area, as he had so often done when it came to Jim Kirk. They had parted briefly after they left the science lab, both to attend to individual duties, and Spock had not seen him until he arrived at the bridge at the start of their shift....And there he was, shining more brightly than any star they had ever passed, looking for all the world, for all the universe, as if he had been spun together from nothing but light and warmth – from the rays of the suns themselves. He was, to Spock, quite simply a marvel. It was in his smile, it was in his eyes, it radiated from his face as he unfailingly gave his full and absolute undivided attention to any one of his hundreds of crew members, for any reason, his expression a perfect fusion of attentiveness, patience, understanding, seriousness, intelligence, humour, and kindness. He exuded it. He transferred it. It could be seen reflected by whoever it was he was talking with, their own expression filling with the sort of delight that only comes from being utterly drenched in that kind of warmth. The smell of his skin. Like apples, the sand of Vulcan, memory, the leather of his Captain’s chair, and something that was just distinctly Jim. The scent of passion, vitality…of laughter, and light.

Ten minutes until the end of Alpha shift. Not that Jim was known for leaving on time. On the contrary, he was known for overlapping straight through onto Beta, and even Gamma, unless Spock appeared to calmly insist that he retire, or Bones appeared to not so calmly yell in his ear while brandishing a hypo. Sometimes two. (Honestly, if the man ever came into contact with a bow and arrow he would perfect the art of distance-hypoing. Jim would never be conscious again). So the only solution to disguising the fact that he was apparently leaving duty on time, was to make it look as though he was _not_ leaving duty on time – but to do that somewhere that was not the bridge. Moreover, if Jim was honest with himself, he wasn’t actually sure that he could really trust himself much longer to ignore this fact they were on the bridge. His heart was racing, his palms were literally itching, and his whole head and body pounded with sheer physical desperation. But Jim Kirk was nothing if not the master of maintaining solid gold appearances in the face of extremely difficult circumstances, and God knew, this would be worth this final push. He steeled himself. Then,

“Well, crew”, he said, pleasantly, beaming round at them, as was his custom. He stood up with the body language of someone making it obvious that they were about to leave. “I believe Spock and I have a few stats to go over in the lab”.

Jim Kirk code for, “please take me to bed and fuck me through the mattress”.

He glanced behind to Spock’s console, to find his First Officer looking straight back at him with total composure – which was effectively betrayed to Jim (to Jim’s relief) by the already blown condition of his pupils.

“I believe you are correct, Captain”, Spock said.

Spock code for, “I intend to”.

Jim then went full Oscar-worthy by engaging Chekov and Sulu in a conversation about the next poker tournament for a full two minutes, while Spock (who Jim was careful to retain in his peripheral vision at all times – not that he wasn’t always hyper aware of where he was), completed his end of bridge shift tasks on the PADD, and then left. Jim saw him actually press for the lab, rather than their quarters. Yep – keep up the façade properly. Good plan. Then, as the turbo-lift doors slid open and Spock went through them, he turned so as to face the bridge, and cast Jim a single look that had the effect of entirely erasing Jim’s recollection of any of the previous two minutes of conversation with his lieutenants. Chekov and Sulu burst into laughter about something that was obviously meant to include Jim, and with the very last vestiges of his self-control, Jim forced an appropriate level of convincing laughter, without the faintest clue what they were talking about. He knew then he had reached the end.

With a swift clap on the back to his navigators, he strode away in what he hoped was his usual casual/confident manner, willing himself not to stumble under the rising dizziness, raising a hand in friendly (and normal-bright-and-breezy-Jim-style casual) farewell to Uhuru as he went, and pressed for the turbo lift.

It took 20 seconds to arrive.

To Jim, it may as well have been 20 light years.

He made it into the lift with no interruptions (if Scotty had commed from the basement at that point, which he quite often did at the end of a shift, Jim might actually have considered going down there - purely for the sake of killing him with a ratchet), and through increasingly shaky vision, pressed for the laboratory floor. The lift touched down, and the doors slid open. Jim stepped out, momentarily professional and cautious in case Spock had not found himself alone in the lab. But all he saw before him was Spock, standing waiting, who – upon seeing Jim – now moved towards him with not nearly enough speed.

They were not making it back to their quarters.

Jim used his last remaining thread of sense to order the computers to lock all doors, before falling wordlessly into Spock as Spock fell into him.

_Finallyfinallyfinallyfinallyfinally..._

Finally he could kiss him, and be kissed by him, and darting hands slid across clothes, and under clothes, and removed clothes – finally skin to skin, the contact hitting them both with the combined force of their united desire - both of them breathless and urgent – and again Jim found his back against a wall, but this time they sank down together, and hot strong hands were running down his back, and taking hold of his hips, thumbs running down into his groin. There was no mistaking where this was going - and Jim was desperate for it. He went to turn over but Spock stopped him with a swift hand to his midriff, and by pressing his lips to Jim’s –

“No, Jim”, he whispered against his mouth. “I want to see you…”

\- and Jim couldn't fathom how his body and brain were physically withstanding this force of want and need.

_(And happiness...happiness was echoing in the distant parts of his mind...)_

Spock lowered them both to the ground, never ceasing kissing Jim as if the very source of his existence lived within Jim’s skin. Which, in Spock’s mind, it did. Then his hand glided smoothly down Jim’s back, and gently he began to slowly press clever fingers home, with that same mixture of tenderness and demand from before that made Jim want to fucking _cry_ , Spock’s other hand gripping his thigh and lifting him, guiding his legs around him, his fingers touching and touching and touching, deeper and deeper, driving himself in, drawing Jim’s longing out…..until eventually – for although it was less than minutes in reality, Jim had been waiting years to feel this - Spock withdrew his fingers, adjusted slightly where he held himself above Jim, and in one smooth, continual movement, pushed in to the hilt.

Jim arched into him instinctively (cried aloud at the feeling of being filled…but filled by Spock, who was meant to be there, they had been designed to be together). It was tight, and hot, edged with a sharp possessive pain, and utterly fucking perfect, Spock shifting just slightly to immediately hit that particular spot inside, making Jim’s spine contort with agonised ecstasy, and making both of them cry out.….

Then, before they entered the final stages of this wonderful storm, there was stillness for a moment, both breathing heavily, holding each other's gaze, Spock looking down at Jim as though he was the only thing in the whole universe…

Jim beamed (Spock’s heart literally hurt under the power of that bright smile), and – curling a hand around the back of Spock’s neck, pushing his fingers in at the base of the skull so that Spock shuddered - drew him down so he could whisper into his ear:

“Move, Spock.….. _move_ ….”

Then, with those words triggering a low and barely restrained groan, Spock was against Jim’s chest, one strong arm curled up Jim’s side and under his arm to hold his shoulder, keeping their bodies together, mouthing feverishly along Jim’s shoulders and neck, moving with perfect rhythm and pace, both of them breaking apart and coming together. Spock gathered himself, and went to take hold of Jim, but Jim stopped him, with the words,

 _Justyou…wantittobejustyou_ –

\- that were said not aloud, but through the bond.

And, in the loving cacophony of _you feel so good, so good….closer, harder, further, more, faster, more, harder, more, more, more_ , neither could tell whose thoughts were whose.

Jim distantly knew, even in these gloriously anguished minutes in which every atom of his being could think of nothing but the fact that Spock was inside of him, that he was moving inside him, that he had never before understood what sex was really for. It was, he realised, as he squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his forehead into Spock’s shoulder, wanting to scream, for _this_. For the erasing of awareness of anything else, for the closing of every conceivable space between them, for the deep and almost unbearable level of connection that was touching Jim somewhere tender, raw, and previously unknown. And still it wasn’t enough.

Grasping, clinging ravenously, insatiably, wanting everything at once – everything of him, Jim pulled Spock in closer, using nails, suddenly finding he was incoherent - _harder….please, Spock, I need you….God I need you to…..just…..harder, please…._. Spock responded by pushing in deeper, with a barely perceptible increase in speed, but he kept the perfect rhythm that made their bodies move together this way, exquisite and beautiful, making the build towards that point unbearable, pleasure and sensation building and building and _buildingbeyondbeyondallpossibletoleranceallpossibletoleranceJimwasgoingtofuckingscreamandfuckwhoeverheardthem._ …

Then Jim felt the tautening and tensing within him, and sensed – in every heart, mind and physical way that it was possible to sense someone – Spock reaching his peak. Spock said his name shudderingly, once -

Jim…

Then again…

 _Jim_ …

And Spock was coming, face pressed to Jim’s shoulder, one hand clenched on the inside of Jim’s thigh just above his knee, the other bound under Jim’s shoulder with increasing tightness, breath fast and shallow, his climax rampaging through his body and into Jim’s in heavy spasms, faint cries being forced from him with each rhythmic shudder - and at that point, with those sounds in his ear and with Spock’s burning body releasing into him, Jim, for the second time that day, came the hardest he had come in his life, this time without Spock’s hands even touching him.

Afterwards, once breathing patterns had resumed something like normal, and Spock had pulled carefully out and dropped down to half-lie against the wall, pulling Jim with him, entangling their fingers and kissing wherever on his face he could reach with an affection Jim had never been shown in his life, they lay side by side in afterglow, bodies touching from ankles to shoulders, their mingled thoughts of adoration passing silently between their linked minds and enveloping them together in something that was, Jim thought, quite literally out of this world. He saw Spock smile gently as he heard this, and bring a hand up to brush Jim’s temple, intensifying all that he was feeling through this simple touch of a psi point and making Jim close his eyes briefly in sheer disbelief. Spock then reached for his discarded science tunic to  do a basic clean up, Jim watching him from a state of incapacitated bliss as Spock passed the fabric over Jim’s stomach, and kissed his bare shoulder.

Those words arose in Jim's mind again, and they began to form on his tongue...

Suddenly, Jim felt his breath catch in his lungs, and a familiar and awful tightness spread across his chest – a feeling he hadn’t truly experienced again during his adult life – not since the arrival into his life of Pike, and Bones, and the Enterprise...and Spock. Before them, it had never been relevant, he had never been close enough, or wanted to be close enough. He had never cared enough. And since them, he had been safe. Pike had pushed and believed in him, Bones yelled at him and looked after him, the Enterprise made him…and Spock had become his touchstone, his constant, his other half. They loved him – and he adored them. But now, lying in the faint blue and silver glow of the science lab, pressed against Spock’s warm, strong, protective body and with his mind wonderfully saturated with the combined strength of what they each really felt for each other, he recognised _this_ kind of love - the earth-shattering, life-changing, do-or-die kind, irrepressible and inescapable and devastating - and his mind and body wanted to panic. Questions and insecurity flooded his brain, obliterating the post mind-warpingly-great-sex fog and flinging all his consciousness into a terrible acute awareness of how much was at stake here, how much could go wrong. How badly this would fucking hurt, and how it was unlikely that – this time – he would recover from any loss.

He tried, God knew he tried, to conceal it from the beautiful being lying next to him – there was no way that James Tiberius Kirk- Captain of the fucking USS Enterprise, was going to succumb to teenage girl drama just because he’d had sex with the person he’d pined for for five years. But there was no concealing it from Spock. Because, as there hadn’t been for five years, there was, for Jim, no concealing anything from Spock –and in any case, Spock could hear and feel Jim’s rising fear in his own mind and body.

Spock shifted so as to turn fully on his side facing Jim, propping himself on his elbow. He placed a gentle hand on Jim’s chest, and gazed at him with a mixture of his signature calm, and a deep, loving concern. Jim felt it, but – ashamed and afraid - he couldn’t bring himself to meet Spock’s eye. He tried to twist his thoughts away from Spock’s mind, to block off this nonsense, he accusingly told himself, to not show this weakness, and ruin all this so soon with his pathetic faults. But he couldn’t shield, because Spock was right there, mentally soothing away his self-flagellation, reaching in and softly drawing out the pain so that it stood before them both in all its complex darkness.

Jim did look at Spock then – because there was nowhere else to go.

 _I’m sorry_ , he thought, desperately. _I’m sorry, don’t listen to it, I’m sor_ –

But Spock took his face in his hands, and in their minds took gentle hold of Jim’s pain, and kissed him tenderly.

“No, Jim – _ashayam_ ”, he whispered, holding him to him, running his fingers through his hair, his body so close that Jim could feel the reverberation of his words in his chest. “I love you….I will not leave you, I will not betray you – and I will never stop loving you…. _Jim_ …. _ashayam_ ….”. Spock was kissing him inbetween words now – _or was it inbetween thoughts?._.. and Jim stopped being able to tell which words were said out loud, and which were seeping through in his mind, and because he was helpless against it, and because he wanted to be helpless against this, against Spock, Jim gave in, and fully allowed himself to be vulnerable. He closed his eyes and let Spock see, in his mind and in his heart – he let him see how he truly felt about him, and how he felt about himself. And Spock was alongside him in body and in mind, and in that moment Jim could have faced a million Romulans and lost, and considered it a win.

He was loved.

He was in love.

He was loved.


End file.
